2009 St. Louis International Film Festival

The 2009 St. Louis Film Festival is almost here; it runs November 12th-22nd. Every year when the SLIFF booklet comes out, I end up spending days pouring over all the options. It takes some real strategy to figure out what films to see and when, especially when they’re spread out over five different movie theaters. There’s just no way to see all the good ones! And unfortunately, the Cinema St. Louis folks have made it even harder for me this time by having both a Spanish-Language Sidebar and an Argentinian one. Sheesh. After my first read-through of the line-up, here are a couple that jumped out at me right away.

Gigante

Adrian Biniez, Uruguay, 2009, 84 min., Spanish
Sunday, Nov. 15, 3:15 p.m., Frontenac 1
Tuesday, Nov. 17, 3 p.m., Frontenac 1

In this gentle comedy, Jara is a shy and lonely 35-year-old security guard at a supermarket on the outskirts of Montevideo. He works the night shift, monitoring the surveillance cameras of the entire building. One night, Jara discovers Julia, a 25-year-old cleaning woman, through one of the cameras. Immediately attracted to her, Jara watches Julia night after night on his video screens while she works. Soon he starts following her after work: to the cinema, the beach and even a date with another man. Jara’s life becomes a series of routines and rituals built around Julia, but eventually he finds himself at a crossroads and must decide whether to give up his obsession or confront it. “Gigante” was named Best First Feature and awarded the Silver Bear at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival.

La mujer sin cabeza (The Headless Women)

Lucrecia Martel, Argentina, 2008, 87 min., Spanish
Sunday, Nov. 22, 1 p.m., Hi-Pointe

In the dazzling third feature from Lucrecia Martel (“The Holy Girl,” “La ciénega”), a startling car accident on a vacant road disrupts the life of Verónica (María Onetto), a wealthy dentist from the northwestern part of Argentina. She flees the scene, uncertain as to what (or whom) she may have hit, but is haunted by the possibility that she might have killed someone. Comparing the film to Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic “L’avventura,” the New York Times’ Stephen Holden called “The Headless Woman” a “brilliant, maddeningly enigmatic puzzle of a movie.” Co-produced by Augustín and Pedro Almodóvar and co- starring Inés Efron (“XXY”), “The Headless Woman” topped IndieWire’s poll of the best undistributed films of 2008.

XXY

Lucía Puenzo, Argentina, 2008, 86 min., Spanish
Friday, Nov. 13, 9:30 p.m., Frontenac 6
Sunday, Nov. 15, 1 p.m., Frontenac 6

Winner of the Critics Week Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, “XXY” deftly examines the ways in which an intersex teenager’s physical and sexual developments affect the dynamics of family. After raising their child as a girl for 15 years, a marine biologist and his wife invite a gifted surgeon and his family to visit them on their secluded island in order to allow Alex (Inès Efron) the freedom to explore her options in terms of gender identification. However, the mutual attraction between Alex and the surgeon’s teenage son intensifies the already difficult concerns of the two families. “XXY” was awarded Best Picture, Actress and Adapted Screenplay by the Argentinean Film Critics Association and won the top prizes at both the Athens and Bangkok film festivals.

Crude

Joe Berlinger, 2009, U.S., 104 min., Spanish & English.
Sunday, Nov. 15, 6:30 p.m., Tivoli 1

Three years in the making, this epic cinema vérité documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (“Brother’s Keeper,” “Paradise Lost,” “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster”) chronicles one of the planet’s largest and most controversial environmental lawsuits. “Crude” – which premiered at Sundance and has since won nearly a dozen festival awards – follows a landmark case that originates in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador, pitting 30,000 indigenous and colonial rainforest dwellers against the U.S. oil giant Chevron. The New York Times writes: “Rarely have such conflicts been examined with the depth and power of Joe Berlinger’s documentary ‘Crude.’ These real characters and events play out on the screen like a sprawling legal thriller.” Rolling Stone calls the film “a powerhouse of a documentary! This one means to shake you. And in Berlinger’s hands, it does.”
With director Berlinger.
Followed by a Q&A between Big Sky Documentary Film Festival director Mike Steinberg and Berlinger, recipient of SLIFF’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Documentary.

Spanish for Veterinarians, Spanish for People with Sick Puppies

I was tooling around in Washington University‘s library the other day to see what kind of Spanish trouble I could get myself into when I came across Bonnie Frederick and Juan Mosqueda’s book Spanish for Veterinarians: A Practical Introduction. Even though I’m not a veterinarian nor a veterinary science student–in fact, I don’t even have a pet right now–I somehow thought this would be a good book to check out and peruse at home. I mean, who doesn’t want to know how to say “to examine the wing” (examinar el ala) or “to vaccinate the puppies” (vacunar los perritos) en español?

Blackwell Publishing 2008

The book has a fun set-up. There are two chapters on verbs, a couple on general situations–that have great titles like “How Long Has the Cow Had a Fever?”, “The Past and Accidents,” and “Telling People What to Do”–, and several on particular animals (horses, cattle, dogs, cats, etc.). But basically the book throws a lot of vocabulary at you with just a little bit about grammar. The idea is that between listening for key words and saying ¡Hable más despacio, por favor!, a vet will be just fine to deal with Spanish-speaking clients. (Good luck with that, folks!) I suppose that if the book is used in tandem with Spanish-language courses things might go okay…until la fiebre de las Montañas Rocallosas (Rocky Mountain Fever) kicks in. ¡Aye!

For me, I was just looking for some fun new words, like la tortuga de caja (box turtle), las pulgas (fleas), and el alpiste (birdseed). I think I’ll leave things like transmissible canine venereal tumor (el tumor venéro transmisible), feline urological syndrome (el síndrome urológico felino) , and intervertebral disk disease (la enfermedad del disco intervertebral) to the professionals using this book. And perhaps I should go back to a plain old picture dictionary for the time being.

Some other good words found inside:

el ala : wing :: cola : tail :: cuerno : horn :: hocico : muzzle

pata : paw :: pico : beak :: la ubre : udder :: pezuña/casco : hoof

Walt & El Grupo

Walt Disney Dancing in Argentina

In 1941, Walt Disney and a group of his animation associates were convinced by the US government to take a goodwill tour of South America. Roosevelt feared the potential for Nazi sympathy on the continent and saw Disney and his group as a perfect vehicle for soft diplomacy. His proposition came at a time of labor unrest in the Disney Studios, as well as closing markets in Europe because of the war. Walt Disney saw this as an opportunity for his creative group to reboot with some new ideas, characters, and storylines inspired by Latin America. The trip lasted around three months, and the group had their longest visits in Brazil and Argentina, but at least some of the entourage also visited Peru, Uruguay, and Chile. This unique cultural exchange and political adventure is documented in the new film Walt & El Grupo. I was happy to see it this week…even though there were only two other people in the theater with me. I guess documentaries aren’t big draws these days. Nonetheless, I would recommend it.

The film is directed by the  son of legendary Disney animator Frank Thomas, mostly features the family of El Grupo in interviews, and has the Disney logo attached to it, so there aren’t any hard shots taken at Walt or the idea of the tour. Mostly it’s just a documentation of what the group of artists experienced during their trip. And what a trip! I wish the US government would pay me to tool around South America making films and drawings and meeting the artistic movers and shakers of the continent. And the Disney folks certainly got production out of the visit. In particular, two films were produced in the forties that directly related to their experience there, Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. (They are package together on DVD, if you’re interested. I currently have it in my Netflix queue.) The former even includes some travelogue moments from their trip…

The latter also includes a Disneyfied mexicano…

Rudo y Cursi review

I should start by saying that I’m biased. I like almost anything that Gael García Bernal stars in, including Alfonso Cuarón‘s film Y tu mamá también. That film features Bernal and Diego Luna in the story of the sexual tension between two wealthy, testosterone-driven teen mexicanos road triping with a beautiful woman (Ana López Mercado) during the fall of the PRI. Bernal and Luna’s brotherly chemistry from that film translates perfectly into Rudo y Cursi–where they play actual brothers. And speaking of brothers, the film is directed by Alfonso Cuarón’s brother Carlos.

Cursi and Rudo are two bumpkin-y campesinos who work on a banana plantation and play fútbol in their spare time. Their lives change when a big-time soccer scout accidentally stumbles across them. He gets them both dreaming big: Rudo of soccer stardom, Cursi of being…a famous singer. The trouble is, the boys are kind of daft and don’t always see the reality of the world around them. Rudo is getting older (by sports standards) and doesn’t quite have the disposition for team sports (hence his name). He also might have a teensy problem with bad luck when it comes to gambling. His obsessions blind him to his obligations as a husband and father. Cursi has the style of a karaoke singer, dreams of shallow models, and ignores his real talent–his golden foot. But his devotion to song creates one of the highlights of the film, a music video for his cover of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me” (“Quiero que me quieras“).

Bernal and Luna are both infectious in this movie. And the film has some of those touching, makes-you-sleep-better-at-night moments because of it. But I won’t say it’s all fun and games, even though it is a comedy. Cursi’s singing career has some truly painful moments in it, including a headlining…er, matinee performance at a carnival. And Rudo makes more than one just plain stupid and dangerous decision. But in the end, I suppose you could say that they both get what they deserve.

#34: Hothouse (1962) by Brian Aldiss

“Obeying an inalienable law, things grew, growing riotous and strange in their impulse for growth.”

“Life was everywhere, life on a formidable scale. But the increased solar radiation that had brought the extinction of most of the animal kingdom had spelt the triumph of plant life. Everywhere, in a thousand forms and guises, the plants ruled. And vegetables have no voices.”

Brian Aldiss does some funky things with physics and nature in Hothouse. He has the Sun expand its intensity. He has the Earth with one side permanently facing the Sun, one side not. And he has insect webs connecting the Moon and Earth. Oh, and did I mention the fact that plants rule the world and humans have become a minor, hunted species?

Once you’ve got all that down, the plot follows simply along. Mostly it’s the tale of Gren, one of the few human males on the planet, his relationship with morel—a sentient fungus that exists in symbiosis with him—and his journey to find out what’s really going on with the Earth, Sun, and Aldiss’ crazy physics. Otherwise, the book is really a fantastical romp through Aldiss’ imagination. He invents plants, insects, and the directions of human evolution.

I must admit that I grow tired of Aldiss’ fantasies at times and a few sections of the book were a real slog for me. On the other hand, the book is generally beloved, as is Aldiss. So you don’t have to take my word as final on the issue.

Availability
IDW recently brought this title back into print.

#22: The City and the Stars (1956) by Arthur C. Clarke

“Like a glowing jewel, the city lay upon the breast of the desert. Once it had known change and alteration, but now Time passed it by. Night and day fled across the desert’s face, but in the streets of Diaspar it was always afternoon, and darkness never came. The long winter nights might dust the desert with frost, as the last moisture left in the thin air of Earth congealed–but the city knew neither heat nor cold. It had no contact with the outer world; it was a universe itself.”

“He was always wanting to go outside, both in reality and in dream. Yet to everyone in Diaspar, ‘outside’ was a nightmare that they could not face. They would never talk about it if it could be avoided; it was something unclean and evil.”

Alvin is a boy who wants more than life currently has to offer him. He lives on Earth a billion years from now, and everything around him is desert. He lives in Diaspar, a walled-in city that’s the last on the planet, and the people of Diaspar are agoraphobic to the point of not even being able to look over the city walls at what lies beyond. A long time in the past, humans traveled the galaxy, but then they ran foul of an aggressively expanding civilization called “the Invaders.” Violence ensued; many human lives were lost. Humans and Invaders eventually made a pact. If humans stay on Earth and never travel the stars again, the Invaders won’t wipe them out. Or at least, this is the story the people of Diaspar have been told for millions of years…

Diaspar is kind of like a sophisticated Second Life. A central computer maintains everything in and about the city. The computer controls the rise and fall of the urban landscape, as well as the memories and essences of people. Folks aren’t born, they’re created…over and over. When reborn, the new you comes out bellybuttonless and fully formed, and after about twenty years, your old memories return too–with a little editing. Objects can be gained through thought alone. I want a beer…(poof)…there it is. People go around through a kind of Second-Life avatar. Large gatherings, for instance, usually include no physical beings; Alvin has rarely been in the physical company of his “parents,” who are more like assigned guardians. And kids play virtual reality games that are fantasy quests that reinforce the status quo (“don’t leave the city”).

Alvin has had enough; he wants to know what’s outside Diaspar. In particular, he wants to see the stars. And an odd fellow named Khedron the Jester befriends him in this quest. Khedron is an element of chaos planted in society by the central computer (or rather the designers/programmers of the central computer). The thought is that utopia without crime is too much of a bore; a little chaos does a society good. Khedron helps Alvin find a way out of the city because it will shake things up. Lucky for Alvin and unknown by any other Diaspar resident, an ancient tram system exists underground. It’s in bad shape, but it can still make it to one destination…a place called Lys. Alvin takes a free ride.

Lys turns out to be another human settlement, but one quite different from Diaspar: rural and resistant to the technologies of Diaspar. People in Lys are born and die naturally, and they want nothing to do with Diaspar and its unnatural ways. Lys residents have their own irrational fears, thank you. Once Alvin finds Lys, his journey truly begins.

Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars has a fantasy element–the hero’s quest–that separates it from the rest of his (hard-science) work. But the investigation of the unknown and the Clarke paradox (a belief in the power of science to make human life better while simultaneously looking to a higher intelligence–but not a god–to help usher human progress along) are as present here as in his other writing. And fantasy notwithstanding, Clarke’s intention in the novel is clear. Humans are bettered through science and questioning. In this way, Alvin is as Clarkean as one can get, and the novel is in good science-fiction company.

Availability:
Like many good sf novels, The City and the Stars is not widely available in an in-print edition. However, the St. Louis City and County libraries both have a copy.

#21: The Death of Grass (US: No Blade of Grass) (1956) by John Christopher

People where I live (Southwest St. Louis City) go a little crazy over grass. We have a neighbor, for instance, who–I swear to you–trims every so often with a pair of scissors and a ruler. That’s a bit extreme considering it’s just zoysia. Now zoysia originates in Asia, and…

British novelist John Christopher (nee Christopher Samuel Youd) (b. 1922) sets the scene of another British disaster novel (a la John Wyndham) in The Death of Grass, but departs greatly from Wyndham in execution. After a brief prologue about two brothers, John and David, the novel begins a few years after the nasty “Chung-Li virus” has ravaged the rice fields of Asia–most heavily in China. Western and British reaction is typically racist: these “Asiatics” don’t know how to handle emergencies and govern themselves, so naturally all shit breaks loose when the staple of their diet disappears. Of course, the noble Brits wouldn’t react in such way. No, according to Christopher, they’d be much worse.

The virus, as you could guess, quickly moves to the West, and it jumps from just rice to almost every type of vegetation out there, most visibly grass. Whole areas become dirt deserts, and citizens quickly begin to panic. Enter the two boys from the prologue. John is now urbane, a family man who works as an engineer in London. David, on the other hand, followed in the footsteps of the boys’ grandfather and became a farmer. David is hold up on the farm growing potatoes. John is trying to flee with his family and hangers on to the safety of David’s farm. And it’s here that Christopher writes a very different book from the average “cosy catastrophe.”

In a Wyndhamian world, white, middle-class folks like John will ensure that civilization will be reborn from the clean slate of disaster, and that it will be truly civil. Christopher’s world is much nastier. Rape, theft, misdistributed arms, ruthlessness, and the legacy of corrupt governments ensure that things won’t go so well in the post-crisis world of the future. Men and women are killed for canned foodstuffs and blankets. Towns form posses that strip refugees bare and leave them for dead. Women are chattel. Traumatized children are eligible for marriage. Families come to gunshots over a sliver of land. And individuals truly change. John, for instance, who was selected “leader” of a band of London refugees by a coin toss, hardens more and more as the novel progresses, all the while promising his wife that he’ll change back to his old self once they “settle down” at his brother’s farm. But it’s hard to wash all the dirt and blood off before relaxing in a rocker near the fire in a quiet country setting.

#20: The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester

“This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying…but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice…but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks…but nobody loved it.”

The Stars My Destination is generally considered the sf The Count of Monte Cristo. The main character, Gully Foyle, is a directionless sailor who spends time in prison and escapes with the help of a fellow inmate, with riches near on the horizon. Not too unlike Edmond Dantes. Foyle is also driven by revenge. While left trapped on the merchant starship “Nomad” at the beginning of the novel, Foyle signals for help from a passing vessel, “Vorga.” But “Vorga” leaves him to die, and Foyle finds something to live for…revenge. Foyle’s escapades accelerate from there. He spends time with a tribal group living on an asteroid, plans a terrorist bombing, takes on the identity of an upperclass dandy, and even trades in those dreaded weapons of mass destruction. Literarily pulpy, this novel is perhaps Bester at his best.

Last time we left Alfred Bester, he was writing about the skills of the mind. And so TSMD begins. The landscape of human civilization was radically changed years in the past by a skill called jaunting. To jaunte is to travel from one point to another instantly, purely by thought. The ability was first discovered by Charles Fort Jaunte, and many of the early practitioners died while attempting it. But once the general populace gained the skill, all shit broke loose. The poor began jaunting out of slums, thieves jaunted into anything they could, the ruling class turned to sexual Puritanism, and security lost its meaning. By Foyle’s time, civilization has come to a relative calm again. But things are strange. For instance, the rich show their wealth by not jaunting—resorting to expensive bicycles before doing something so beneath them. The rich also keep their daughters locked in blind rooms that ensure no contact with the outside world. Purity. Virginity. Fascinating stuff.

Bester also takes a page from Golding and describes a tribal group of humans. Gully’s first stop on his revenge trip is an asteroid inhabited by the descendents of a stranded scientific research team. Calling themselves the “Scientific People,” they speak an odd dialect, tattoo themselves with elaborate Maori masks, and line the interior of the asteroid with parts scavenged from abandoned, wreaked, and lost space vessels. Foyle makes more than one visit to this strange asteroid during the course of the novel, and his sense of what these people are changes with every visit. Bester also describes a group of neo-Skoptsy. And they’re frightening. Instead of just settling for castration like their Russian cousins, these Skoptsy sever their central nervous system in a belief that sensation itself is the root of all evil. They spend the rest of their lives living in eternally dark catacombs on Mars, never again seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or touching. Gully Foyle calls them “the living dead.”

In the end, Bester seems to be looking towards the next stage in humanity in TSMD. Beyond rocketships and moon dreams, what does it really mean to have the stars as a destination. Gully Foyle finds out.

#19: The Inheritors (1955) by William Golding

“We know very little of the appearance of the Neanderthal man, but this…seems to suggest an extreme hairiness, an ugliness, or a repulsive strangeness in his appearance over and above his low forehead, his beetle brows, his ape neck, and his inferior stature.”
–H.G. Wells, Outline of History

“[The Inheritors] could not possibly have been written were it not for the discoveries of palaeoanthropology, the study of Stone Age humanity through bones and tools it has left behind. The perspective which The Inheritors imaginatively exploits is the dark backward and abysm of time, as it has been revealed to us by one branch of modern science.”
–David Pringle

There’s little more frustrating to me than being forced to slog through–instead of devouring or cherishing—a novel because of external forces: work, family, sleep, looming library fines. I started The Inheritors no less than four times, and after repeated renewals at the library, I was forced to read it in only two sittings. A shame really. Though short, the novel is deliberately paced, thoughtful, and thought provoking. It’s meant to stay with you, the literary peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth–delicious, yet troublesome. Alas, while I did finish the book, it was not my finest hour as a reader.

Sir William Gerald Golding (1911-1993) is not known as a sf writer, and this novel is rarely, if ever, billed as a piece of science fiction (it’s definitely a speculative fiction book, however!). But that’s the way Pringle wants it to be known. And in terms of this list, what Pringle wants Pringle gets. And why shouldn’t he? As per the quote above, the novel, as any good sf novel does, stems from scientific knowledge and exploration. It’s a book about the last days of the Neanderthals for goodness sake. And as Arthur Clarke sees it, progress and science run from the bone in the hand of primitive man to the starship in the sky.

***here be spoilers***
The narrative is simple. A small group of Neanderthals returns to their seasonal cave to find their world adjusted. The log they use as a bridge to cross the river is gone and food is unusually difficult to procure. Quickly they realize there are others in the area. Beings both familiar and utterly foreign. Members of the clan begin to disappear (i.e., are murdered). Soon after, their leader dies from an illness, and all that is left is a male and female pair, Lok and Fa. They track down these others in hopes of finding their young one, Liku, and discover that these others are the inheritors of the Earth. They’re homo sapiens.

Lok isn’t particularly bright, and he’s not cut out for leadership. Fa is naïve. The two of them, as is to be expected from the naturally peaceful, childlike Neanderthals (if we are to believe Golding), can’t quite conceive of what’s going on. Why would the others kill? Why do they wear the skins of animals? How do they ride in logs (canoes)? Particularly perplexing to the pair is the matriarchal-animistic religious rites of the others. Anyway, I’m sure you see where this is going, yes? In the end, only one is left. One to cry in frustration over what is no more and to watch helplessly (the Neanderthals can’t even cross the river because of their fears) as the species dies out and the rule of the inheritors begins. Though I must say, for all their superior intelligence, the homo sapiens are equally perplexed by the Neanderthals. The real reason for the slaughter…they feared the Neanderthals were devils.
***end spoilers***

The Inheritors is Golding’s second novel. His first is the beloved Lord of the Flies, and there are certainly some thematic similarities between the two: clan identity, ruthless humanity, and the corrupting nature of power and leadership. Golding’s version of the world is pitiful. The hungry aren’t filled. The meek don’t inherit the Earth. And the merciful find only mercilessness.

#18: The Long Tomorrow (1955) by Leigh Brackett

“No city, no town, no community of more than one thousand people or two hundred buildings to the square mile shall be built or permitted to exist anywhere in the United States of America.”–13th Amendment of the US Constitution

“There’s never been an act done since the beginning, from a kid stealing candy to a dictator committing suicide, that the person doing it didn’t think he was fully justified. That’s a mental trick called rationalizing, and it’s done the human race more harm than anything else you can name.”

“There are those who think that life has nothing left to chance. A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.”–Rush, “Free Will”

Two generations in the past, an all-out nuclear war ruined the cities of the world and led to the question of whether technology and scientific knowledge are worthwhile pursuits. The new ruling class of America, the agrarian New Mennonites, said no. Machines, electric power, atomic energy all come from the same source–evil. The New Mennonites enacted the 13th Amendment, a de facto ban on cities and progress. Civilization now stands still in the middle of a wheat field.

Leigh Brackett (1915-1978) is best known for her career as a Hollywood screenwriter. Among other works, she penned, at least in part, two great Raymond Chandler adaptations: The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. And she also cowrote a little sci-fi picture known as The Empire Strikes Back. Many of her novels and short stories were seen as pulp, which isn’t accurate, at least in the case of The Long Tomorrow, a novel that is decidedly literary.

The narrative follows two young New Mennonite boys, cousins Esau and Len Colter. They live a small community called Piper’s Run. But they long for more. They desire a place where ideas are freely exchanged and machines aid human civilization. The main catalyst for these desires is the boys’ grandmother, who tearfully recalls her childhood days when planes filled the air, cars and busses crowded the streets, and folks had leisure and luxury. After witnessing the horrific stoning of an outsider thought to be from the mythical “Bartorstown” (perhaps the last city) and coming to realize the limits of New Mennonite living, the boys set off to find this last refuge of human progress.

However, Bartorstown may not exist. Or it may not be what they think it is. If it’s out there, it’s somehow connected to a traveling trader named Mr. Hostetter. And the journey contains many obstacles: lust, jealousy, ignorance, and fanaticism. The West, for instance, has wandering bands of New Ishmaelites, a group that renounces all possessions and who frequently and randomly rise up violently against the followers of the flesh (i.e., everyone who isn’t a New Ishmaelite) when called by God in a moment of religious ecstasy. And in the end, the boys must decide which is more frightening, the monster closely regarded in its cage or the monster pushed to the fringe of society and ignored. And just what is this monster anyway?